


Retcon

by Corvid_Knight



Category: Homestuck
Genre: How the hell do I tag this?, Tumblr request, murder mention? infanticide mention?, my tumblr is knight-of-heart-and-art, oof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 08:36:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13407477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: In which John Egbert attempts to put the power he gained through shenanigans to good(?) use. Namely, removing the source of most of Dave's trauma.Nobody said retconning a person out of existence was easy. Or the right thing to do, morally.





	Retcon

He lifts the apathetic infant up, eyes filled with regret and hammer in hand. He could make it all better with one hit, thirteen years of abuse and fear erased with one blow. 

The child stares back at him, its inhumane orange eyes boring into his mind. 

One blow and his best friend would be better. One blow. That’s it. 

The baby lets out a whine, the first sound it’s made since he picked it up. 

_Him. Not it. If you're going to kill him, admit that's what you're doing,_ he tells himself, still staring at the baby. 

It'd change so much. Fix so much. No more waking up because he can hear Dave muttering to calm himself down from another round of nightmares. No more knowing the only reason he won't wear a t-shirt is to because he needs to hide the scars up both arms and across most of his body. He wouldn't flinch at anyone else's too-quick movements, he wouldn't go silent at the sound of someone rummaging in the silverware drawer, because this baby wouldn't grow up to be the man who hurt him. 

He can change it all. Right now. He's the only one who can, really, and it's so simple. He's killed monsters, but he knows babies are a lot more fragile than that. It'd be easy. 

A little more playing with the timeline, and he can make sure the other baby—the one who doesn't exist yet, the one who won't be here for another couple decades, the one who, in history as it is, was cared for and hurt by the man the baby he's holding will grow into—he can make sure that baby goes to someone who actually cares. 

The baby in his hands whines at him, squirming a little and blinking, reaching out to try and grab his glasses. 

_It's a baby. What do you think you're doing?_

And it is. He is. He's just a baby, not inherently evil and not destined to live out a full, natural life anyway. He's a baby. 

But he's going to do awful things. 

_But you're not the god who should get to judge whether a baby gets to die on the strength of what it's going to do with its life,_ he tells himself. _That's not you. Maybe the God who's meant to do it is dead, maybe he doesn't give a shit, maybe he never existed in the first place. But you're not him._

But even as those thoughts run through his head, he thinks about the look on his friend's face during a flashback. 

Right now, he wishes he'd brought a coin to flip. Or was halfway good at making decisions. Or something. 

The baby whimpers as his grip on it tightens enough to leave faint red marks on its skin. Does it know how close it is to dying? Of course not...

_It's not my decision to make._ That's the thought that he settles on. _It's not._

Just dropping the baby, letting it slip out of his hands, is very tempting—even with his oath chosen, he still hates it, for what he knows that the man it will grow into will do. Instead of letting it fall, he sets it back down very gently, though. 

And before it starts crying at not being held anymore, he's gone from both this place and this time.

**Author's Note:**

> huh. 
> 
> the only explanation I have is [**this**](https://knight-of-heart-and-art.tumblr.com/post/169829335506/i-wish-you-would-write-a-fic-with-this-tidbit-in) and the statement that I take almost any writing request that y'all feel like sending in to that blog. Like seriously. Do it.


End file.
